Post Office Mediation Scheme

Debate between Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston and Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

The case of Haji Abbas, who runs the Selsey Road post office in Edgbaston, was investigated. He was found not guilty but his post office was closed. There was an allegation of his having lost £90,000, and he feels that he has lost an additional £60,000, yet the Post Office is not reopening the branch. Someone has lost their livelihood following unfair allegations, and nothing is being done to redeem it.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I suspect that during the course of this debate we will hear all too many stories exactly like that one, with awful things happening to sub-postmasters and nothing being done about it. I have already mentioned my constituent Jo Hamilton, who pleaded guilty. She first found that there was a discrepancy of, I think, £2,000. She rang up the help desk, which told her to press certain buttons, and immediately the discrepancy doubled to £4,000. Eventually the discrepancy rose and rose to more than £30,000. There was no proper investigation by the Post Office. She told the “Today” programme last week,

“they couldn’t prove I did it, but I couldn’t prove I didn’t.”

Defence and Cyber-security

Debate between Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston and Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I am sure that my hon. Friend is right in saying that the Government are well aware of where some of these attacks are coming from. I do not agree that it would be relatively easy to counter them, because these threats are developing at a frightening speed, as the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) said. The diversity and development of these threats is changing on a second-by-second basis.

I am pleased to say that the Government are taking action to make the UK more resilient to cyber-attacks. It has established a new computer emergency response team in early 2014, CERT-UK, to improve the co-ordination of national cyber-incidents and to share technical information among countries. The Government set up a new cyber-incident response scheme in GCHQ to help organisations recover from a cyber-security attack. They have extended the remit of the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure—the CPNI—to work with all organisations that may have a role in protecting the UK’s critical systems and intellectual property. They have agreed with regulators in essential services a set of actions to make sure that important data and systems in our critical national infrastructure continue to be safe and resilient. As I have said, responsibility for cyber-security rests principally with companies and organisations themselves. Government agencies’ roles will be limited by available resources and national priorities.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is a difficulty in making cyber-security just a defence issue and saying that the issue lies with companies? There is a network of things that need to combine, and we have not yet developed a system to create resilience across the spectrum; there are only chimneys of responsibility.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

The hon. Lady is quite right. We are groping towards it, but we are not quite there. One of the benefits of this debate, of our report and of the Government’s response is to help us move to a better place.